ST:TOS episode, “What are Little Girls Made Of?”
(Oct 1966 air date)
I’ve seen this episode before, several times, but don’t recall noticing this before and I’m watching it now. Much is made of the first interracial kiss on TV being when Captain Kirk kissed Lieutenant Uhura in the ST:TOS episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” that aired in Nov 1968, but what about this kiss, lips to lips, about 5 minutes into the WALGMO episode (and two years before the PS episode):
Doesn’t this count? They both are heterosexuals, presumably. Okay it’s not a kiss of passion, it’s a kiss between friends — Uhura is wishing Chapel well before the nurse beams down to see her once-fiancé after five years apart. Not passion, but still interracial. That counts, doesn’t it?
Not a big deal but I found that interesting.
Additionally, and not really the point I wanted to post about but it’s so blatantly obvious I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, but about 35 minutes later Captain Kirk breaks off a stalactite to defend himself with, and it is a big penis:
Was this really the first (non-platonic*) inter-racial kiss on television or was it the first kiss between a white actor and Black actress. ISTR that there was an inter-racial kiss on some show but the actor was white and the actress Asian.
Kirk got it on a year earlier in “Mirror, Mirror” with Barbara Luna, who’s of Filipina–Asian descent. He made it with Vietnamese France Nuyen in “Elaan of Troyus” before “Plato’s Stepchildren” was filmed.
Going way back, Desi Arnaz was Hispanic. There are probably other examples as well.
Danno on Hawaii Five-O scored with some hot non-white babes, IIRC. (All in the line of duty, of course.)
Funny, I actually posted that stalactite picture on George Takei’s Twitter feed years ago thinking I’d get an “oh my”, but he must get so much crap that it was ignored.
Kirk must be stronger than I thought. He waves that heavy stalactite around like it’s a hunk of styrofoam!
That’s one of my favorite episodes. I love the idea that you can make a duplicate of somebody by putting them on a spinning turntable. And it’s got Ted Cassidy AND Sherry Jackson AND a bottomless pit! You can’t go wrong with a combination like that.
I don’t think so. That sort of cheek kiss between friends or relatives was considered a different sort of thing entirely. – mostly still is, isn’t it? Don’t people still kiss their parents like that, for instance?
In most of the USA, he was at the time considered white. “Hispanic” wasn’t the sort of category that it is now.
It’s almost literally handwaving the duplicate into existance.
The Old Ones ™ owner’s manual for Presto Duplicate Person Maker
Place subject on table
Place gollum clay on table
Spin
–at this point a miracle occurs
Stop turntable
Enjoy your new duplicate
Jackson did an interview afterward in which she revealed the solution she found to keeping her costume from separating from her breasts: she used Shatner’s toupee tape.
